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Topic: Aggressors: Ancient Rome (Read 9302 times)

I think the dev described it as a medium ground between Civ and EU if I'm not mistaken.

Seems a bit more Civ than EU, but much more than simple Civ. A lot less building and more ops than Civ....hence the "Aggressors" in the title. I am still figuring all of this out.

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"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of EnglandI may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston ChurchillWine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

Now that I have played 8+ hours I have to say that I think this is a seriously underrated game. I am an ancient world nut and have, literally, dozens of books on the ancient Med, including works by Plutarch, Thucydides, Herodotus, Caesar, etc. I think this is a great "overview" level game that dips into the operational level.There is not really anything new, but there really does not need to be to make a good game. These guys seem to have taken all of the good bits from lots of other games and put them together quite well. The game seems to get better the longer I play and the deeper into the tech tree I go. I am still learning the systems.

Things I do not like:Individual units fight - no stack or combined arms type combat. given the scale, this is not unreasonable, but...

UI - better than I thought, once I got used to it, but still a bit cumbersome in a very few places. Lacks easily available feedback in a few things.

Diplomacy - Deep in many ways, but allows diplomacy too early to nations too far separated. Has nice touches like time lag.

At the moment (180 BC) I am fighting Carthage in the Central Med and Egypt in Greece. Resource constraints are severe problems, mainly lumber and metals. Coal supplies are barely sufficient. I cannot wait to restart and do some things over and I really cannot wait to start a BIG, slow random map game. If we ever get a fantasy unit set, this may become my main game. So says solops, in the early learning days of a new game (always the best of times....familiarity reveals warts).

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"I could have conquered Europe, all of it, but I had women in my life." - King Henry II of EnglandI may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly. - Winston ChurchillWine is sure proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. - Benjamin Franklin

I've read the 225 page manual. Then I started playing yesterday. I'm hooked.

This is two big games in one package.

Game 1: A "civ type game" where you start with a bunch of other civilizations in either a random world or the Med. You can adjust almost everything in the game. If you don't like something, the code itself can be adjusted very easily. This game has most of the regular trappings of 4x games (research, exploration, foreign relations, etc....) but works much better than almost everything I've seen. The military side of the AI is extremely aggressive to the point of launching dangerous amphibious attacks both on you and on other AI opponents.

Game 2: You play in the Med around 250 BC. You can play a "big power": Carthage, Rome, Egypt, Athens, etc..... or a teeny-tiny power (a German tribe) or anything in-between.

I think the reception of the game was harmed by a couple of things.1] There are so many 4x games.2] This one is complex. You have to carefully manage your resources and there are a dozen of them. What you can do is highly limited by your resources.3] The "default game" is to drop you into an advanced strategic situation (Ancient Med) with vast power differences between the sides. Even starting as Rome leaves you with a lot of tough initial problems.

So far, the game has been awesome! I initially started in the advanced world - and decided I did not really understand the rule concepts. I dropped back into random world and a low level (barbarian) starting point to grasp the rules setting. That game alone is much better from a military wargame 4x perspective than most any 4x game I've played in a long, long time. The combat AI is just a lot better than most 4x games and the game does allow combat - unlike the CIV games which throw so many obstacles in your path that it is hard to wage war.

Nice to find this site I hadn't heard of before (shame on me, I know)! I happen to have been on the beta team for Aggressors, and can add my $.02 to airboy's and solop's observations -- actually, they've pretty much said it all!

If any of you are still on the fence, give Aggressors a go; it's well-supported (still), and is pretty much endlessly customisable. As for future, well...